Together
by ImNoSupermanGer
Summary: With Sasuke in Orochimaru's hands and Kakashi in the hospital, a new Team 7 has to be formed. Two shinobi are assigned to replace the rogue Uchiha: A ninja named Sai and a young female shinobi. This formation isn't promising to be harmonic until a dangerous encounter is forcing them to grow together. Is the mission or your comrades' life more important? (Possibly NarutoxOC)
1. A new Team 7

**This is my first Naruto fanfiction and English is not my native language, so please, don't be too harsh.**

„Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!" he shouted with an enormous confidence. In an instant, dozens if not hundreds of clones appeared out of thin air. Her eyes widened in amazement, seeing this rather clumsy Genin use an A-rank technique flawlessly.

 _How is this boy able to perform a forbidden jutsu just like that?_ she thought while hiding behind a tree and being careful not to let her be detected. The boy began to fight with his duplicates; soon more and more clouds of smoke began to rise up to the sky.

 _Only by sight, I couldn't tell who's the real one – his chakra is evenly distributed among those clones. It seems like they can even act on their own. What an impressive jutsu,_ she continued to wonder, _not too bad from my new comrade._

Hours had passed before the young blond ninja had finished his training. Breathing heavily and covered in bruises, he tramped home. The girl who had watched him also went away. Her steps made the sand under her sandals crackle as she walked through the wide avenue of the Hidden Leaf Village. The soft light of colourful oil lamps illuminated the various people in the streets.

There was laughter, fun and happiness everywhere. For her, it was kind of heartwarming to see so many people simply enjoying their evening. As she continued to walk home, the lights began to fade, giving way to dark alleys. She stopped in front of a run down apartment complex, the facade's eroded, little short of greyish, paint contradicted the colourful bright lights of the far away well-attended streets.

She opened the squeaking door to her tiny flat and sighed before closing it behind her back. The night flew by and moved the next day...

...

"Hello," a pale shinobi greeted with a quite obvious fake smile on his face.

"What are _you_ doing here?" a blond ninja instantly answered while pointing at the other one, "You're that guy from the roof earlier!"

"Wha-" a confused girl threw in.

"It's a pleasure to meet all of you. From now on, I'll be taking Kakashi's place," a fourth but adult one joined the little group. The atmosphere was intense, you almost wouldn't dare to even take a breath. Suddenly, the two boys started to argue and drew their weapons.

"That's enough, Naruto," the green-dressed Jonin stepped in, which was quickly countered with an aggressive "Oh yeah, who are you anyway?"

Staying calm he answered, "I'll be filling in as team captain while Kakashi is recovering in the hospital. Please, call me Yamato. You three are going to be comrades now, so you better learn to get along with each other."

"You're joking.. comrades with him?" the boy who turned out to be Naruto mumbled in minor dismay.

"I'm sorry about earlier. But you see, I knew we were going to be teammates and I wanted to see how strong you were," his opposite tried to explain himself serenely.

Naruto listened to his words, growling like a dog. The moment he wanted to reply, Yamato interrupted, "Ah, there comes our last member."

"Huh? Another one?" Naruto shouted and looked around hastily without spotting someone, "But where? I can't see him!"

"Try looking upwards, you might see her!" someone called. Simultaneously, the three young ninjas looked up and laid eyes on their new teammate who was crouching on the 10 feet wall (~ 3m) they were standing next to.

She hurled herself in the air with a powerful push and landed right beside her team captain.

She was examined closely by her new comrades. She wore a dark green shirt and black, slightly baggy, pants. The typical black headband with the metal Hidden Leaf signature was firmly tied around her upper arm, pointing to the outside. Her light brown hair was just long enough to frame her face and neck with a side-swept fringe which was exactly short enough to not cover her amber eye.

"Now that we're complete, I guess you should introduce yourselves," Yamato tried to lighten the tensed mood.

"Sure," the blond ninja responded with mixed feelings, "my name's Naruto Uzumaki and I'm going to be the best Hokage this village has ever seen!" He proudly adjusted his shiny headband while grinning broadly into the new girl's general direction.

 _That is a genuine smile, I have to observe him more closely to be able to copy that,_ Naruto's rival thought impressed by his comrade's facial expression.

"I'm Sakura Haruno," a girl with pink hair said politely while bowing down, "it's a pleasure to meet you."

"You can call me Sai. That's everything you need to know," the pale boy added to the conversation with a light smile on his lips, a slightly tilted head and closed eyes. This pose looked so unnatural that it creeped the others a bit out; they weren't sure what to think of his behavior.

Now, the last one spoke up, "I'm Mika Rutava. I'm from a small village in the Land of Fire which I left because I wanted to become a highclass shinobi."

Yamato, Naruto and Sakura greeted her a´with an affirmative nod while Sai, with his chin between his thumb and index finger, mumbled, "Now I have to come up with three nicknames for you... Let's see."

First, he pointed at Naruto, "Airhead."

"HEY! What do you want to say with that, huh?!" Naruto quickly protested. So heavily in fact, that Sakura had to forcefully hold him back.

Then, he pointed at the new girl, Mika, "Loner." Which made the girl narrowing her eyes and biting in anger. But she was, just barely, able to compose herself.

"And finally you," Sai continued his unintentional rampage by facing Sakura, "Ugly."

The formerly polite young woman completely lost her mind, rampaging loudly, "WHO ARE YOU CALLING UGLY?" It took both, Mika _and_ Yamato, to hold the furious girl back.

 _This is going to be great,_ Yamato thought as sarcastic as he possibly could.


	2. Judgements

Exactly one hour later, the newly formed Team 7 met at the village's main gate. The day was still young; birds were flying through an azure sky, which was spotted with white clouds, a young man with the name of Shikamaru laid on a nearby roof and wished to be one of those fluffy, cotton-like figures.

"Okay people, this is it. Team Kakashi moving out," Yamato commanded before he led the way out of the village, followed by his four-headed team.

The atmosphere was the definition of awkwardness. No one uttered a single word but instead was observing their teammates _:_ Naruto and Sakura were highly sceptic of Sai but they at least seemed to tolerate or even like Mika, who had already given up on a positive relationship with Sai. She tried to get along with the two original Team 7 members. Yamato wasn't sure if his team could even manage the march without provoking a huge internal fight. And Sai was just suspicious of everyone while subtly smiling as if nothing was going on. Or as Naruto called it – 'like a complete idiot'.

They walked along a peacefully glistering river; Naruto had shoved his hand deeply into the pockets of his bright orange jacket. Maybe it was his natural instinct as a ninja to keep an eye on an allegedly ominous subject but he couldn't move his annoyed gaze away from Sai.

Of course, the pale shinobi didn't fail to notice his observer, just like the two girls behind him. He friendlily announced, "If you keep staring at me like that, I will hit you." He quickly changed his entire facial expression and gave Naruto the most serious of all looks. It was enough to send shivers down the blond ninja's spine.

"And if you call me 'Loner' one more time, _I_ will hit _you_ ," Mika mumbled, having not forgotten the first word Sai had said to her.

"Where did that come from? Where do you get off saying things like that? Listen you-" Naruto took his provocations with ease.

"I really have nothing personal against any of you..." Sai answered cheerfully. But you could easily notice by his tone that the words he uttered weren't the ones he had actually in mind.

"Yeah? Then why did you say it?" Naruto continued to shout.

"You don't understand, I was only trying out a certain personality type. That's all."

"Personality type?" Sakura and Mika mumbled simultaneously.

Naruto wasn't impressed by Sai's rather weird explanation, "If you were trying to do it, then that means you meant it! We don't need someone like you on this team... You really rub my the wrong way."

"Naruto! Get a hold of yourself. You are part of a team lead by the great Kakashi, so lose the attitude," Yamato was clearly a fan of the copy ninja.

The blond shinobi became _furious;_ he couldn't stand Sai and he didn't trust him, either, "He's not a part of Team Kakashi! Not now, not ever! The forth member of our team is and always will be Sasuke Uchiha. No one, especially this guy, could ever take his place. He's just a fill-in for Sasuke. That's all he is. And he will never be a real member of our team!"

His pale teammate took every word of this rampage in while trying his best to gave Naruto the best smile he could produce. After all, a smile is the best was to solve a tricky situation, right? "I'm glad that that's how you 're feeling. Sasuke is a traitor. Yes, you're right, I'm not like him at all. I'm not a traitorous cockroach."

Yamato just mentally facepalmed himself. He was prepared for his new team to not get along too well or to argue with each other a bit but this was just insane. A hasty conversation about Sasuke with Naruto was one of the worst things to do right know. Not having much background information about Sai wasn't helpful, too. The team captain could not afford to let Naruto lose his temper and unleash, even a tiny amount, of the Nine-Tails chakra.

"I've had it with you, Sai!" Naruto growled and hurled his clenched hand provocative in the air. His entire arm trembled with anger.

 _This is bad,_ Yamato figured. He was a quick thinker and made a first hand sign for a jutsu to split those to apart by force if he had to.

"Stop it already," Mika stepped in, throwing herself between the two parties with widely outstretched arms, "Naruto, I can make a sense of how you're feeling, seeing your teammate being replaced by two complete strangers. I can also understand that Sai and I are entirely different than this Sasuke," she locked her eyes with him, "but please, just give us a chance, would you? Could you _at least_ try to not try to break each other's bones on the first day? That applies to you, too, Sai."

A moment of completely silence broke out. It was only interrupted by the jolly chirping of a couple of birds in the distance.

"Thank you," Sai acknowledged her intervention.

 _It's not like I did it for you. According to Lady Hokage, Naruto is pretty fragile when it comes to his closer friends. Especially Sasuke Uchiha. But I also can't let your clashes danger the execution of this mission. There are things far more important than your feelings, Naruto, regardless of what you believe Sasuke to be,_ Mika held an interior monologue without breaking eye contact with the blond.

Naruto's body suddenly became a whole lot more relaxed. The few tiny veins, which had formed on his forehead, began to fade away.

Mika felt relieved, _Good, looks like they're calming down. And I had already feared that- ...huh?_ Suddenly, Sakura shoved the brunette out of her way.

With absolutely no regard for any kind of consequences, the pink-haired woman and bashed her fist with an insane power into Sai's cheek. Thus, she catapulted him several metres backwards before he landed ungently on the dusty ground.

"Sakura, what the hell?" Mika shouted in highly unpleasant surprise. _I just had them calming down. This was just the opposite of helpful._

"He already had his chance," Sakura mumbled quickly becomes louder, "Sai, you don't know a thing about Sasuke. I won't stand for you talking as if you do. Just keep badmouthing him and next time... I won't hold back." Her teeth made a gnawing noise, as if her jaws would grind themselves away.

"Hm. Fine then. I'll keep my mouth shut in front of you," Sai admitted, defeated. But Sakura's grim expression wouldn't budge, even for a second.

Mika swallowed. Naruto as well.

Yamato had finally lost his temper. With lightning speed, he weaved a few other hand signs and a gigantic wooden cage grew out of the gorund.

 _Is that... wood style? But how?_ Mika observed astonished.

"I'm warning you, I will toss you all into this cage if you insist on fighting with each other. Your choice," the team captain spoke up. He obviously hadn't the nerves or the time for conflicts like that.

 _And what did I do?!_ Mika hissed to herself. Swallowing her pride, she looked around her and into the amazed faces of Sakura and Naruto... and Sai's expression of neutrality. They knew what to do. You didn't need to be as smart as Kakashi or Shikamaru to realize what option was the better one if you had the choice between being locked up in a wooden cage with people you don't get along with or, well, basically anything.

The team chose not to be jailed; they continued their journey by foot and they soon came by a bathhouse.

"I guess we should call it a day," the team captain suggested, "we should rest from this... eventful day. Don't you agree, Naruto?" Yamato turned around and lookes at Naruto with a terrifyingly clinical face and a blank stare that not even the most callous of shinobi could resist.

"Y-Y-Yes, absolutely!" the boy stammered frightened with his head rapidly moving up- and downwards in, not entirely sincere, agreement.


End file.
